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NATIONAL DEFENSE 



Report of Committee 

to the 

Board of Directors 




i 



CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 

of the 

UNITED STATES 

February, 1920 



This report of the Committee on 
National Defense of the Chamber of 
Commerce of the United States was con- 
sidered and approved at the meeting of 
the Board of Directors of the Chamber 
on January 21, 1920, and the committee 
was authorized by the Board to take 
steps to make its recommendations effec- 
tive. 

The report is printed in this pam- 
phlet for the information of the member- 
ship of the National Chamber. 



r>. af »• 

OCT 20 1920 



-ufc* 



Report 

of the 

Committee on National Defense 

To the Board of Directors of 

the Chamber of Commerce of the United States: 

The Committee on National Defense begs to submit the 
following report to the President and the Board of Di- 
rectors : 

The Committee began its work with an examination 
of the record of the Chamber's attitude on the general 
problem of national defense, as shown by Referendum 
No. 15, of April, 1916, and the Report of the National 
Defense Committee as submitted and adopted by the 
Fifth Annual Meeting, February, 1917. 

The United States has progressed very far in knowl- 
edge and understanding of the national defense problem 
since April, 1916, but the principles laid down in the 
Referendum and in the 1917 report have proven them- 
selves sound in the light of the past two years' ex- 
perience and there is little occasion for the Committee to 
recommend that the Chamber should change its views on 
the main points now. 

The reason for the present investigation and report 
is the inquiries now being made by the military com- 
mittees of the Senate and the House looking toward the 
preparation of an army reorganization bill which will 
determine our future military policy. 

The Committee notes that the first question submitted 
in Referendum No. 15 deals with the general problem as 
to whether or not the United States needs any prepara- 



tion for war. It must be remembered that this question 
was proposed in 1915, when there was considerable dis- 
cussion in the country at large as to whether or not the 
United States should do anything looking toward prep- 
aration for war. The Committee takes it for granted 
that the necessity for preparation demonstrated itself by 
April, 1917, but on the chance that there might be some 
persons who have reverted to the doubts of 1915, the 
Committee ventures to express its own opinion. Owing 
to present world complications, there is today more pos- 
sibility of our being drawn into a great war than at any 
time in our history when no definite menace was appar- 
ent. The Committee further feels that the necessity for 
preparation for war is greater today than it was in 1915. 
The Committee feels that the United States in its present 
great position of world leadership must not permit that 
leadership to become ineffective. The Committee takes 
it for granted that the mere fact of its appointment 
demonstrates that the Chamber is as firmly convinced 
as it was in 1915 that preparedness is desirable and 
necessary. The vote on this question in the Referendum 
was 962 to 8 in favor of preparedness in its broadest 
sense. 

As far as the Committee is aware, there is no sugges- 
tion now before Congress for drastic reorganization of 
the Navy. Therefore, that phase of the national defense 
problem has not been considered by the Committee. 

In relation to the army reorganization, the Committee's 
view is that the problem naturally divides itself into 
three parts: 

First: The size and organization of the 
regular army. 

Second: The method by which the great 
army necessary in war was to 
be provided, and, 

Third: How the army of both peace and 
war was to be provided with 
the necessary munitions and 
supplies. 



On the first of these three questions the Committee 
felt that the Chamber is not competent to speak. What- 
ever the personal views of the members of the Committee 
may be, the Committee was not willing to go into any 
discussion of the question or make any recommendations 
to the Chamber. This question is a highly technical one 
and should be handled and settled by people who are 
qualified experts on the subject. The Committee feels 
that the solution of technical public questions should not 
come as a result of non-expert but enthusiastic private 
opinion. 

On the second question the Committee felt that the 
Chamber had already expressed its views and that the 
principle of universal military training had been ac- 
cepted by the membership of the Chamber as being the 
only just and practicable way of using the man power 
of the nation in time of great emergency. The war with 
Germany certainly demonstrated that the citizens of this 
country believe in the principle of universal obligation to 
military service, and the enormous success of the opera- 
tion of the selective service act during the war ends all 
argument as far as the universal training question is 
concerned. If a universal service army is the only proper 
army with which to fight a war, it is obvious that the 
simplest common sense would indicate that the plans for 
raising such an army should be worked out in time of 
peace and such training given as will make the problem 
of raising the army as simple as possible. 

There is a perfectly sound and convincing argument 
to be made in favor of the universal military training 
question from the point of view of good citizenship and 
preparedness for peace, quite aside from its military 
bearing. The Committee takes it for granted that the 
members of the Chamber are thoroughly familiar with 
this question and assumes that this phase is one of the 
reasons why the Chamber has committed itself so un- 
reservedly to the principle of universal training* 



The question as proposed in Referendum 15 was as 
follows : 

"The Committee — recognizing the military obli- 
gation equally with the civic obligation as a funda- 
mental duty of democratic citizenship in a republic 
and to establish a system which will affect every 
man alike, — recommends that universal military 
training be adopted as a fundamental democratic 
principle of our military policy and be enforced by 
law to furnish adequate land, sea and industrial 
forces in peace and war." 

The vote on this question was 889 votes in favor to 
56 against, and the Committee considers that this vote 
is an ample mandate from the members of the Chamber 
of Commerce of the United States to continue the at- 
tempts to have the universal military training principle 
enacted into adequate law. 

On the third question, namely, the problem of supply 
in its broadest sense, the Committee felt that the Cham- 
ber of Commerce was entitled to speak and be heard. The 
Committee has this feeling under the same theory which 
prompted it to withhold its opinions on the question of 
the size and organization of the regular army. 

It is probable that no single business man who is a 
member of the Chamber was unaffected in his business 
by the efforts of the government during the war to pro- 
vide munitions and supplies for the army. Many hun- 
dreds of the members of the Chamber were in the army, 
either directly concerned with the supply problem, or as 
members of the line of the army requiring the supplies. 
The weaknesses of the old system were apparent to every- 
body concerned with the problem very soon after the 
outbreak of the war, and the many changes in organiza- 
tion which were proved necessary resulted at best in a 
makeshift organization, but did not establish any method 
which could be satisfactorily incorporated as part of the 
permanent military policy of the United States. 

The Committee is quite satisfied that one principle at 
least has been proven in connection with the supply prob- 
lem for the government needs in time of war. This 



principle is that within the War Department at least 
there are two distinct problems, both complicated, both 
technical and both requiring highly trained experts to 
solve. One of these problems is the military problem of 
raising, training and using military forces, and the other 
is the problem of providing equipment so that these 
troops may go into the field with an ample supply of all 
of the vast machinery required by modern war. 

If this is true, it is obvious that there must be a mili- 
tary organization and a chief within the War Depart- 
ment, and that there must be a civilian business organiza- 
tion within the War Department, with a chief, to control 
the business problems of war. 

As far as the Committee is aware, there is no proposal 
now before the Congressional military committees which 
recognizes this principle, although it has been brought 
out and advocated by the Assistant Secretary of War 
in hearings before the Senate Committee, as shown in 
Chart No. 1. 

The chief difficulty of establishing such a system is 
that the problem is largely one of opportunity to secure 
personnel for the work. It is just as unwise to have in- 
adequately trained men in a civilian capacity in this pro- 
posed industrial staff of the Secretary of War as it would 
be to have inadequately trained military men on the 
military staff of the Secretary of War. The industrial 
problem would not be active enough in time of peace to 
secure and hold civilians of adequate training to handle 
the work. There would be no career to justify their 
making it a life work. Further, it seems very clear to 
the Committee that the place in which a man should 
receive his training for this work is not in any govern- 
mental or military agency, but should be in the great 
industrial world which must necessarily be a training 
school for such work. Such military information as may 
be desirable will have been automatically acquired within 
a few years by the operation of the universal training 
clause, because the business men at that time will all 
have received their training as young men. Therefore, 
it seems to the Committee that this industrial staff of the 



5 



Secretary of War must be manned during peace time 
with officers of the army who are men of capacity and 
who will be available from among the officers of the 
great supply bureaus of the army. The principle may 
be maintained, however, by having the chief of the supply 
service so far as the industrial side is concerned a civilian 
who will bear the same relation to the Secretary of War 
that the chief of the general staff does in military matters. 
With this provided by law and the line of operation of 
business functions and military functions clearly drawn 
within the supply bureaus, the necessary war expansion 
may take place without dislocation and reorganization. 
Expansion itself is not too difficult, provided that the 
expansion does not destroy the organization which is 
expanding. It is desirable to keep this organization as 
small as possible during peace time. 

The work of the industrial organization would not be 
very great in peace time, but it would be exceedingly im- 
portant, and it would require as its chief a man of great 
experience and vision. It should attack at once the prob- 
lem of preparing the industries and the government for 
smooth and rapid cooperation in case of war. It could 
readily provide that the great scramble and uncertainty 
of early 1917 should not occur again. The basis of the 
government supply contracts, and possibly even the terms 
of the contracts could be arranged in time of peace so 
that the danger of losing the stockholder's money would 
not confront the manufacturer, nor would the possibility 
of excessive profits be shining before the eyes of the 
profiteer. All wars of the future will be, even more than 
this last war, wars of industry. A nation which has the 
greatest potential power and the best means of changing 
this potential power into active opposition to the enemy 
will win the next war, and it is folly for the United 
States, with the greatest potential industrial power in 
the world, to let inattention and carelessness prevent the 
use of that power for the national safety. The United 
States should no longer be viewed by manufacturers as 
an undesirable customer, and unless some such system 
as is suggested is set up which can be operated in peace 



time, it will continue to be so regarded. The distrust of 
the manufacturer by the military man is a perfectly nat- 
ural manifestation, and the feeling on the part of the 
manufacturer that the military man does not know or 
appreciate his problems is equally as natural. There 
are in the country now hundreds of business men and 
military men who have learned each other's problems 
through the experiences of this war, and a system must 
now be devised so that that knowledge may be perpetu- 
ated in the successors of both the military men and the 
manufacturers to the end that it shall not be necessary 
to have it learned over again when the next war breaks 
upon us. If there never is any next war, the system will 
have produced a very excellent mutual understanding be- 
tween the industries of the country and the government 
of the country for the purposes of peace. 

Your Committee is firmly convinced that the principle 
is a sound one and it would be glad of the opportunity 
to assist in securing the enactment into law of proposals 
looking to this end. The Committee feels that there is 
ample mandate for the Chamber's offering and giving 
such assistance in Referendum No. 15, although it is 
not specifically covered in the questions voted upon. 

The Committee therefore requests from the Board of 
Directors authority to urge before Congress the passage 
of bills which may be introduced covering this principle, 
or if no such bills are introduced, to attempt to have one 
introduced. 

The Committee read with interest the proposal which 
was made before the Senate Committee that a coordinat- 
ing officer, possibly called a Secretary of National De- 
fense, be provided by law, responsible directly to the 
President, who should concern himself with the broad 
questions involved in the national defense problem. It 
has been proposed that such officer have no administra- 
tive duties but would be the point of contact between the 
President and the War and Navy Departments, as well 
as the Department of the Air, if such department is 
set up. 



The chart as below indicates the position that such a 
man would hold in the defense organization of the coun- 
try. This office would correspond exactly in certain fea- 
tures of its work with what was referred to in Referen- 
dum No. 15 as the staff of industrial mobilization, that 
is, the proposed Secretary of National Defense would be 
the Chairman of the War Industries Board and of the 
other necessary war boards which must be created in 
time of war. 

The Committee agrees that such an office is desirable 
and requests authority from the Board of Directors to 
support before Congress legislation looking to the estab- 
lishment of such an office in so far as the proposed legisla- 
tion comes within the view of question No. 3 of Referen- 
dum No. 15. 

The Committee feels that from its examination of the 
Chamber's past attitude on questions referred to, it is 
really an instruction to proceed by all legitimate means 
to secure the carrying out by legislation of the wishes of 
the Chamber and will immediately engage in that work 
if this view is held by the Board of Directors of the 
Chamber. 

There has been much discussion of a proposal to create 
a separate air department. The Committee has not been 
certain that this question is under its jurisdiction at this 
time, but if in the opinion of the Board of Directors it 
should be considered as part of the problem of national 
defense and if the Board of Directors so desires, the com- 
mittee will give the matter its attention and submit its 
recommendations later. 

COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL DEFENSE, 

Bascom Little, Chairman. 

Ralph Crews, 

Everett Morss, 

Phil Spaulding, 

W. C. Spruance, 

Guy E. Tripp, 

W. L. Wright. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 765 239 4 



The President 



Secretary 
of 
War 



Secretary 
of 
Navy 



Secretary 
of 
Aeronautics 




Secretary 
of 
National 
Defense 



War 
Industries 
Board 



CHART No. 2. 
Proposed Plan for Secretary of National Defense 




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